No Matter What Happens, Follow Your Feelings
by Sailor J-chanDuoxHilde 4ever
Summary: 1st book in my autobiography series. Now 20 years old, Heero reflects on his life. Part 1: The loss of his mother and Odin, his training with Dr. J, his first meeting with Relena, and the conflicting sides in his soul.


Disclaimer-Gundam Wing isn't mine. Aralia is my own character. Any plot/conversation/character not shown in the manga/TV series/movie is mine, too.

AC 200-Heero Yuy

Part 1

AC 180-AC 195

If you asked me my age and birthdate, I could tell you. I could even tell you my name. My past is not lost to me.

I remember my parents, more specifically, my mother. She was named Aralia. I don't know my father, although I've been told that I look like him. He didn't live with us. And whenever I asked about him, Aralia hugged me, said that it didn't matter where he was, and then she would disappear in her room and cry for a long time.

I was named Sousuke.

Aralia was very affectionate towards me, but she was undemonstrative. She puts me in the mind of Relena, silently watching my every move, worrying about me in every step I take, acting as a guardian angel.

She had to be. She was a member of the AAA, which stood for Anti-Alliance Army. If the Alliance knew about me, they could kidnap me and use me against the AAA. 

But all the same, she didn't regret having me as a son, and I, not the AAA, was priority 1 with her. She kept me close when Alliance troops were around for the double reason of kidnap-and-ransom and just to protect me, but other than that I was a normal child who happened to be extremely close to his mother. 

I'm glad she got the chance to be close with me, because she didn't live very long after my birth.

When I was 5, I was awoken from my sleep one night by Aralia shaking me. She was frantic, but trying to hide it for my sake.

"Sousuke, honey, I have to go. I'm going to put you in a bomb shelter, okay?" I nodded. "Good boy." She kissed my forehead.

The night she took me to the bomb shelter was the last time I saw her. She was carrying me, and as she handed me off to the woman in charge, she kissed me for the last time.

I stood in the doorway, watching her form grow darker and smaller, until it was gone.

I stayed up all night, listening to the battle, the metallic clang of machinery moving, the rhythmic sounds of bullets, the agonized screams of the dying, the swearing of the injured or the ones who'd lost a comrade. 

In the morning, I was the first one up. As soon as the doors were open, I ran out and began to search for Aralia.

It was a mess out there. Shards of metal were scattered like garbage on a highway. Bodies were strewn about haphazardly. I ran around blindly, trying to find Aralia's sandy-blonde hair and dark blue eyes among them.

Someone caught my arm, and I looked up to see a blonde man. He looked weary and battle-worn.

"Are you Aralia's kid?"

I nodded. "I'm Sousuke."

"My name's Odin Lowe." 

"Where's Mom? Did you see her? Is she okay?"

"Kid, I got bad news. Aralia…she didn't make it out of battle. I've known her since we were kids, so I stayed with her as she died. She asked me to look after you."

I stared at him for a long time. Then I cried. 

It'd be the last time I cried for nearly a decade.

Odin wandered through the colonies. He had no set home. That was because he was an assassin. 5 years before I was born, he killed Heero Yuy.

Yes, my guardian killed my namesake.

At first, he had every intention of making me an assassin, too, or at least able to kill people if I needed. The first thing I learned from him was how to hold and shoot a gun.

You would never suspect, from the way I can handle a gun now, that I dropped the thing when he first handed it to me.

He didn't look exasperated, just picked it up and handed it to me again. I nearly dropped it again, but he held it up. He guided my finger to the trigger and my other hand in the way to hold the gun. Then he told me to shoot.

"Shoot what?"

"Pick something. And then shoot at the middle."

I picked a tree standing twenty feet away from us. I aimed as best I could and squeezed the trigger.

The gun kicked back as it went, making me jump backwards and land on the ground, and the bullet went into the bottom of the tree.

Odin shook his head. "That won't do." He went over to me, grabbed my arm, and helped me up. "You need to learn how to handle that gun when it kicks. You can't jump back like that. And you see where the bullet went, into the bottom of the tree? If that had been a person, you'd have shot him in the foot. Unless your bullet was poison, it wouldn't have killed him."

"I don't want to kill anybody," I protested.

"You will soon enough, kid. You will soon enough."

"Odin, why do you kill people?"

It was December, AC 187. I was 7 years old. We were camping in the forests of a colony, obviously built by nature-lovers. 

"Because I feel I have to." He stood up from the fire he was building and went over to me, and sat down again. "At first, I killed to rid the colonies of rebels. Then, when I learned of what the Alliance was planning, I joined the rebels. And that's how I wound up here."

He paused for a moment. "It's also because of Aralia."

I looked at him intently.

"I wanted to marry your mother. We'd been best friends since we were little kids. But she married your father, and then the scum left her just before you were born. And five years later, when she was still not over it, he killed her."

""He"?"

"Forgot to mention he was an Alliance member, didn't I? She didn't join the AAA until you were two. Well, anyway, your mother was injured in the battle. I saw her get hurt. But before I could get to her, I saw him get out of his Mobile Suit and shoot her."

I was stunned. My father had killed my mother?

"I got so mad that I shot him. Just before he died, he told me he was just following orders to kill the rebels. Just following orders." Odin looked ready to spit. "Just orders to kill the mother of his child. I shot him in the head." He paused. "But that wasn't enough. I wanted the entire Alliance, the ones who gave him his orders, to die." 

He looked over at me. "Aralia died asking me to take care of you. So that's why you're here."

I tried desperately to feel the way he did, but I couldn't. I was furious and heartbroken that my own father had killed my mother, but somehow I couldn't believe that it was the fault of the entire Alliance. I didn't blame them for all the unhappiness in my life.

At least, not yet.

When I was 8, Odin headed to colony X-18999.

"Odin Lowe," said the man taking our baggage. "You're a musician?"

He was holding a case. It was shaped like an instrument, but inside was really a bazooka.

"Used to be," Odin lied. "Now I just carry it around as a hobby. I'm traveling with my son."

Yes. He was passing me off as his son. I kept silent.

"Your destination is X-18999," the man said, checking our passport. "I thought that colony wasn't completed yet…?"

"Like it says, we're not going there for a vacation."

"A former musician, doing hard labor like colony construction?" He handed us our tickets.

"I've been told I'm an odd one." He gave me a slight push. "Let's go."

We went down the hallway. As soon as we were out of earshot, he leaned down and spoke to me.

"Hey, try to act a bit more like family, eh? That's our contract."

"Hmm…okay, Dad," I said. 

I'd never called anyone by that name before.

I was staring out the window of the shuttle heading to X-18999 when he approached me.

"Whatcha looking at?" he asked. "The void of space, which took everything away from you?" I could just here him thinking: 'I mean, us?'. "Or your own image, a face without a name?"

He had made me give up my name. It was too dangerous for me to keep it. My name changed with every colony we went to. So did his. This once he kept his real name.

"Why did you come to this colony?" I asked.

"To abandon you," he answered. "Soon, there'll be a coup d'etat here. You'll take advantage of the confusion and settle down at this colony. You know how. I've taught you everything you need to know to survive."

I turned to him, pointing the gun I kept hidden in my jacket. "And who are you going to kill this time?"

"Septem, of the Alliance Space Force. This'll be my last job. So you should go to school and live a normal life." 

He had long since seen my conviction that I wouldn't be an assassin, so to stay with him would be pointless and dangerous. 

"I'll decide what I'm going to do."

He didn't reply

There were many battles on X-18999 that year. All rebels seem to flock to X-18999.

"Hmm. There seems to be a rather clever man in command," Odin said. We were watching a battle from the rooftop of our hotel. He was talking about the rebels.

"The rebels are just amateurs," I replied. "They need to take out the Frontline Command Center, or they'll be individually targeted."

"That's right. That's why they need men like me."

I smirked and set up the bazooka Odin had brought. "That's a nice train of thought," I jeered.

"Yeah…" He turned to me. "Here's one last bit of good advice. No matter what happens, follow your feelings."

I waited to hear more.

"Once, some idiot fired a single shot and changed the course of history." He was talking about his murder of Heero Yuy. He paused, then spoke again. "After that, I left the organization, and just lived from day to day."

The door to the stairs leading to the roof opened, and two Alliance soldiers stepped out.

"Hey! What are you doing over there?" one of them called.

Odin reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. He tossed it behind him and stuck the one who'd yelled in the lung. Before his companion could act, I whirled around and tripped him. His head hit the concrete. 

I'm not sure if they lived or not. The one I attacked probably lived, but not his companion.

Odin tuned to me. "However carefully you plan, you never know if some fool is going to change the future. So, you may as well do what your heart tells you, so you won't regret it later. That's the right path for people who live life in the present."

He had regrets. He'd regretted not getting my mother when he had the chance. After she died was when he really started to live by this philosophy.

He stole the uniform from one of the soldier and put it on. As he adjusted the helmet, he spoke again. "Okay." He turned to me. "This is good-bye."

"Don't overdo it," I said anxiously. I'd lost Aralia. I couldn't lose Odin, too. "You're old now."

"Huh. Not something I want to hear from a kid." He turned for the stairs. "Don't get killed."

I waited up there for an hour, deciding what to do. Finally, I picked up the bazooka and ran after him, towards the Main Command Center. Septem was there, so Odin was, too.

I ran into the battle and was effectively blocked from the Command Center. Later, I learned that Treize fought in that battle, and Noin directed it from the Frontline Command Center. 

Irony becomes a part of life for me.

As I watched the battle, I suddenly felt angry. I'd never felt so angry before. I finally felt how Odin felt about the Alliance. The Alliance had killed Aralia. And with this battle, they'd make more kids like, homeless wanderers taught to kill.

The bazooka felt like it was a part of me. I had one shot. One shot could take out a Mobile Suit, but I caught sight of the Frontline Command Center Noin was directing from. Better to take out the alphas than the pack. I aimed at that center.

I did not yell it out, but I thought as I pulled the trigger.

"This one's for Mom."

Before the missile could hit the building, Treize's Mobile Suit jumped in front of it and took the hit for Noin. The bottom half of his Suit was gone, and his top half was greatly damaged.

I dropped the bazooka and walked off. 

I had to get to the Main Command Center.

As I reached the Center, I head the resounding echoes of a gun shot, footsteps, and then murmuring voices. I rounded a corner, figuring that Odin had just done his job.

"Odin!"

He was lying on the floor, his chest and leg covered with blood. I knelt beside him, trying to see if he was still alive.

I never found out exactly what had gone wrong with his mission, and I guess I never will.

"Hey…I shoulda listened to your advice," he said weakly. "I've…gotten old."

"Wait here," I said. "I'll secure an escape route for us." I stood.

"Too late," he said.

I was silent.

"Listen…don't forget what I told you…before we left. It's the last lesson…this old fool can give you." A smile played on his face. "Th-The last few years…we spent together…w-weren't so…bad."

And then he was gone. The last person I had in the universe was dead.

There's always something that the dead never finished, and as his hand fell, a detonation button rolled out of his hand.

I picked it up and stared at it for a long time, until I finally spoke. "So this…is the job you left unfinished."

I looked towards the Main Command Center. I was far away enough to escape unharmed if the building blew up. Odin would probably burn up, but I don't think he would've minded.

I pressed the button, and then ran.

A month later, I was still on X-18999, this time living alone, begging or stealing food and lodging.

I walked along an empty, abandoned street, wondering where I could get my next meal, when something caught my eye. In between two old, decrepit buildings was an alley, and an old man was sitting there, leaning against the wall.

"Hey," he said. "You have good eyes. Want to become a Gundam pilot?"

I looked at him for a few seconds, then answered. "Sure."

"Do as your heart tell you," I heard in my mind. "That's the right path…"

I lived with Dr. J for the following 2 years, learning how to pilot Wing. 

It was not yet Wing Zero, so it was easier to control. There was nothing messing with my mind then. At least, nothing technological.

Despite what you may think, piloting a Zero system-free Gundam is not very hard. You had to learn how to maneuver the weapons with the controls, how to start it up and shut it down. It isn't any different from learning how to pilot a Mobile Suit. There's just more power behind it.

My real problem was with the people there. Although I lived with Dr. J, I was never as close to him as I was to Odin. Certainly not as close as I had been with Aralia. 

And as I discovered, this void between Dr. J and I was planned.

I was walking past a room when I heard Dr. J arguing with his superior. As I would later learn, all the doctors were in league with the Barton Foundation, the ones who planned Operation Meteor.

"That's ludicrous! You're suggesting the use of the Gundam as a tool for massacre?" Dr. J exclaimed.

"This is war! It is no big deal, sacrificing the general public, got it? Now retrain him at once!" There was a pause. "The humane feeling of kindness is unnecessary for our weapon!"

"You're right there, but do you really believe Heero Yuy would be pleased if we buried his humanity?"

So that was it. That was why I wasn't allowed to be near anyone. That was why I wasn't allowed to love anyone, or be loved by anyone.

Oddly enough, it made sense to me. Aralia had been taken away from me because of her kindness, because of her willingness to fight for my freedom. So it made sense that kindness was unnecessary.

But her death hadn't been in vain. She had died doing something she believed in, something that her kindness prompted her to do.

I was torn in half, one part empty, the other full of emotion. 

"Follow your heart," one side said. "You don't have, or need, a heart," the other side argued. On and on it went, bouncing back and forth between ideas, so that even without the Zero system, I was screwed up.

I began to develop split philosophies. Depending on what had happened, I either thought that life was cheap and worthless, or that life was meaningful and worth protecting.

My training prompted me to act like I thought the former, thus making me the perfect soldier, unafraid of death and of causing death.

I was the perfect soldier, but at the same time I wasn't.

In AC 191, a month before I turned 11, I was sent to Earth. We'd caught wind of the AAA's terrorist operation on a military base near the Darlian estate.

Yes, the _Darlian_ estate.

I was sent to monitor the battle and report what had happened. I was to act as the war orphan, Odin Lowe, that the school had taken in.

St. Gabriel Academy, the school I was sent to, did not exactly welcome me. Firstly, my class was predominantly female, and secondly, they were all rich females. I was, to them, a no-account war orphan who didn't belong in a classy school such as St. Gabriel.

One in particular, however, did not seem to think that, and I'll give you three guesses who it was.

I met Relena by accident. She was wandering through the halls, lost in her thoughts, and ran into me. The books I was carrying fell to the floor. She stopped and looked at me. I wasted no time in picking up my books and walking away before she could say anything, and I glared at her for good measure. 

I later found out that I was in her class.

Relena wasn't exactly chummy with me, or with anyone, for that matter. But she didn't think me beneath her, or talk about me behind my back. I didn't really care what the students thought of me, but I _did_ notice that she was nicer.

I also noticed that she took to following me around. Yes, even at 11, all she could think of was watching my every step. 

Old habits die hard.

I knew that she was spying on me when I reported back to Dr. J over the 2-way radio: "I've sighted the Darlian estate. I believe that if the mission fails, it'll make a better refuge than St. Gabriel."

This mission was not my mission. She could know anything about it she wanted and it would not hurt me. No one knew that I worked with Dr. J. As long as no one knew that, I could get along without killing her.

After that, she kept watching me, and I could tell she wanted to talk to me, but I could not let her. I didn't talk to anyone and kept to my job as a spy.

"So. It's tonight."

That night, the AAA attacked the base near her house. I kept out of it and merely watched. The AAA lost the battle and the Alliance kept the base. I was no longer needed.

I turned in my school uniform in secret and left the school. 

I glanced back to see Relena staring at me from behind the chain-link fence around the roof. She saw me. A look of surprise flashed on her face, and then she started running sideways, her eyes on me the whole time. She wanted to stop me, and talk to me.

I panicked. Relena had been the only one who was remotely nice to me. If she got close to me, it was a good way for her to lose her life. Just like Aralia and Odin.

I ran away and hid among the trees lining the road to the school.

Just behind me, I heard her say, "My…my name is Relena Darlian. What's yours?"

I returned to space and continued working with Wing. My training as a perfect soldier was also furthered. 

No one talked to me or really gave a thought to me except Dr. J, and his only interest was in training me in my Gundam. I figured that they didn't care about me, so I didn't have to care about them. In the end, the only one who glanced at me was Dr. J.

I still had conflicting sides. But they could never be brought together because I didn't let anyone know of them, and I couldn't reconcile them on my own. 

I acted like they wanted me to, and accidentally started thinking like they wanted me to, as well.

I think, therefore, I am. That is a very true quote.

The Barton Foundation had been preparing for a long time for an attack on Earth, and in early AC 195, they were ready. They would drop a colony onto Earth, effectively killing 2 billion people, and then the Gundams would take over in the ensuing chaos. This was the real operation meteor. 

They planned this for April 7th, 195, the 20-year anniversary of Heero Yuy's death.

April 6th, 195, rolled around. The biggest news that day was that Vice Foreign Minister Darlian and his daughter had arrived in the L-1 colonies for the 5th Colony Summit.

I was watching them from a rooftop as Dr. J approached me.

"This could be your final mission," he said. "The Barton Foundation think Darlian's gotten wind of Operation M. They're planning to assassinate him."

"So…?"

"You have three choices. One is to cooperate with the Barton Foundation and kill Minister Darlian…Another is to obstruct the Barton Foundation and protect Minister Darlian…Or you can just ignore the whole thing."

"So, which should I choose?"

"That's up to you." He walked away.

I looked back at Relena and thought of Odin's teachings. "Do as my heart tells me, huh?"

Relena looked up towards me. I covered my face before she could recognize me.

I chose number three and ignored the whole thing. There were other things for me to do.

An Alliance military base was on this colony, but security was lax. It was easy for me to sneak in and plant the bomb. After I had set it, I jumped over the fence and ran.

I tripped and tumbled over. As soon as I hit the ground, I began laughing. It had been all too easy, and besides, it felt good to laugh. I hadn't laughed in a long time.

I stopped soon enough, and just began looking at the colony's synthetic sky. Soon, my vision was obstructed by a 7-year-old girl's giggling face. She was holding a dog's leash. 

"Hi there," she said. "Are you lost?"

I sat up and didn't answer.

"I said, are you lost?" she pressed.

"I've been lost ever since the day I was born," I answered.

The little girl's dog put its front paws on my leg. It was the first time in a while that anything living had touched me.

"Oh, that's so sad," the little girl said, kneeling down to pet her dog. "Well, I'm not lost at all. I'm taking Mary out for a walk."

The dog barked and began licking her face. She laughed.

"Here." She stood up and stuck out her hand. Clutched in her fist was a yellow flower. "I'll give you this flower."

I took it and looked at it. I remembered that Aralia had kept the same yellow flowers in a garden in our backyard. She used to sit down with me, a blanket around us, and watch them grow until I fell asleep.

"Sousuke," she would say. "I want you to take care of these flowers when I'm gone. When you get married, I want you to give these flowers over to your wife, okay?"

I'd promised her that I would.

"Hey! Wait for me, Mary!" the little girl yelled, bringing me back to the present, as her dog began to run away towards an apartment complex.

I looked at the flower again, wandering where she had found it, and how strange it was that a little girl brought me something of my past that finally evoked happy memories instead of painful ones.

That night, I pressed the detonation button that destroyed the military base. I watched it go up in flames, destroying building after building.

"Mission: Complete."

I turned and began to walk away.

A sudden explosion made me turn around. A Mobile Suit had fallen over and exploded. In turn, it toppled over another Mobile Suit. The other Mobile Suit fell backwards and into an apartment complex.

The same apartment complex that the girl had run to.

I threw down the detonation button and ran towards it, even though I knew that I could do nothing. The Mobile Suit landed on the building and exploded.

I could only stare, horrified, as the building crumpled to the ground among flames and metal debris.

I felt the flower she had given me in my hand. It felt cold and dead, just like I felt.

For the first time since I was 5, I cried. 

The explosion set off the colony's weather system, and snow began to fall as I walked among the rubble, too drained of anything to show emotion.

I searched among the rubble but couldn't find the little girl. However, I found her dog. It was dead, with burn marks all over it. I picked it up.

I took it to an empty spot and dug a grave with my hands. I buried the dog and then covered the grave. I found two stones and stacked them on top of each other. Then I laid the flower by the grave site.

Even then, my heightened sense detected someone behind me. Once again, I'll give you three guesses to who it was.

I didn't care who it was. I pulled a gun out of my pocket. I cocked it and put it to my head.

"Mission: Completed."

"New job for you."

I turned my head around. Relena had disappeared, and Dr. J stood in her place.

"We've decided to launch Operation Meteor."

I didn't reply.

"You have three choices. One is to pilot the Gundam and massacre the people of the colonies. Another is to kill me and run away some place. And the third…"

"The third?"

He looked at the gun in my hand, and I had a feeling he'd found the self-destruct device in my space suit. 

"You should already know." He turned and walked away.

"Hmph…okay, then."

I put the gun back in my pocket and began to follow him.

As I passed, I saw something that I'd missed because I hadn't looked in that area. It was a teddy bear. It was torn up, but on the whole, it was fine.

I picked it up and took it back with me.

"It's finally time for Operation Meteor." Dr. J said.

I was in the cockpit, waiting to launch Wing.

"After the failed attempt on Minister Darlian, we can assume the Alliance knows of the operation."

"But this is different from the true operation," I said.

"Yes…This is the operation _you_ chose. But you'll be risking your life."

"Don't worry about me." I thought of Aralia and Odin and the little girl who'd been nice to me. They'd all died easily and quickly, without a second thought. "Life comes cheap…especially mine."

"I'll contact you with targets and enemy information as necessary."

"Roger."

"Otherwise, carry out the operation on your own."

"Roger."

"Then let's decide on a code name. I've borrowed the name of the pacifist colony leader. All right, Heero Yuy?"

So. I was to take the name of the man my guardian had killed.

"Understood," I said.

So! Did you like part 1? Part 2 will be the rest of AC 195, also 196 and 197. Part 3 will be the aftermath of Preventer 5 (That's something only people with the Gundam Wing: Episode Zero manga would know of…I'll explain in Part 3), and Part 4 will be…I'll leave you guessing there.

Now, as your devoted author, I have two small favors to ask of you. Number 1: GO GET THE EPISODE ZERO MANGA. It is the best 17 bucks you can buy. It has everything. It has the summing up of their pasts—I actually got the idea for this story from that manga—, Operation: Meteor, Preventer 5 Part 1, and a timeline of the AC calendar. GO BUY IT.

Favor Number 2:

REVIEW!!


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